Okay, last week we looked at basically verse 18 and we looked at two major components there as the angel, as verse 18 says, and to the angel of the church in Thyatira write the words of the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. We covered that at length. We didn't get any further than that. And also keep an eye on like. Remember, his eyes are like a flame of fire. His feet are like burnished bronze. They're not burnished bronze, and they're not literally a flame of fire. The like tells us that it is analogous or allegorical. It's a picture of a type which presents unto us those things that are of a greater truth, of a spiritual truth. I know that when Revelation is looked at, and there are many that will say, well, you gotta read it literally. And then they go and allegorize, which I'm not against allegorization. As a Reformed Baptist I do it all the time. I say look for Christ in Scripture everywhere. And that's allegorizing. But then they allegorize. Well that's not literal. Apparently I need to define to some of those that want to interpret it literally what the definition of literal is and the definition of allegorical or pictures or types are. because apparently they have that trouble. And there's nothing wrong with allegorizing. It's like Jesus in the garden when he prayed with such, and he agonized in prayer, and he sweat as it were, in the King James Version, great drops of blood, or instead of as it were, let me put it for you simply, he sweat like great drops of blood. That's not where he bled. He bled on the tree. But he did pray with his sweat was so great in the agonizing in prayer for what he must face, that when it fell from his brow, it splashed as if he was a lamb whose throat was split wide open for the priests to hold the silver bowl under the lamb to catch the blood which would be thrown upon the sides of the brazen altar when they sacrifice the lamb. That should give us an indication of Jesus as a man, what he must face going to the cross to suffer the righteous, holy, infinite, and eternal indignation, the wrath of God for sins he did not commit. and that we're thankful that he prayed that prayer because that's what Adam didn't do when he, when Eve was deceived and he disobeyed. He did not go to God for that wisdom. He sought wisdom from the lie that as soon as you eat thereof. So it says like. So we see in verse 19 is where we pick it up. I know your works I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. So the one thing that we want to take a look at first is, you know, I know your works. It's the Greek word erga, excuse me. Hard to get er out of this kind of throat. And for those who are visiting for the first time or even a first time for a while, I'm not sick, except for the critical condition that you all have. I am a descendant of Adam, and as soon as I'm born, I'm dying. A few weeks shy of 65 years of age, my voice has come to a place where it's been very taxing for me to talk. And so I guess I'm coming to the end of my preaching days very closely. So either the Lord must return or take me home or he'll have to raise up men to speak in my place. I'll be like Moses and they could be like Aaron. And anyway, thanks for your prayers. So, but in this, they have been a church for quite a long time. By the time this letter was received, because of the end of this, it says that your latter works exceed the first. And I'll explain that in a moment. But first let's look at, I know your works. And that's the word erga, which means toil, deeds, labor. I know your works. But then it's followed by love and that should strike us because we know that in 1st John chapter 4 verse 8 that God is love. And that in 1st John chapter 4 verse 19 it says that since God is love in verse 8 that He loved us. That we love Him because He first loved us. 1st John 4 19. And this would explain why the works are first. Do you realize that our love is a work? Our love doesn't justify us. Only Christ, by his precious sacrifice, justifies the sinner. That's the difference, remember. The difference between Christianity, biblical Christianity, and all other religions. The Christian cults, the Roman Catholic Church, The pagan religions, all of them attempt to justify themselves by what they do. Jehovah's Witnesses, you've got to be a Jehovah's Witness and believe the doctrine that Jesus Christ is not the God but a God. He's actually Michael the Archangel. You must believe that in order, and you must believe those things and do many good works in order to get to paradise or live eternally on the new earth. Because apparently according to their interpretation of revelation, their false interpretation of revelation, only 144,000 go to heaven. And they didn't, even to this day when it's been brought up to the Jehovah's Witnesses, that they have no Greek scholar. And they don't even really study the Greek. They have people in Brooklyn, New York that tell them, yeah, it's 144,000. When we get to Revelation chapter seven, and as I've told you for six months in Revelation chapter one, that it's not 144,000, it's 144,000 and 12,000 of the tribe of Judah, 12,000 plural of the tribe of Reuben. I don't know. Actually, I have, I am almost clueless. There's one translation that actually says 144,000 and it's Young's literal translation, but Young, who lived in the 19th century, translates the 12,000 as singular, 12,000, but it's still the plural for thousands. It's, you know, Killian. And he uses 12,000 of Judah, 12,000 of Reuben, and he goes through. So he gets it right in one place and then misses it everywhere else. And to put it more emphatically, in Revelation 14, it says the same thing. It's in plural, and yet it's singular. My best guess is that even in God's providence and his sovereignty, he wants to get lazy preachers and pastors to study the original languages. To get, dig in to see what God's saying and not what every other commentary is saying. I believe that's the reason why. And he kept it in there kind of tongue in cheek. This is a letter to the churches. There's seven letters to the churches and then this is overall the revelation of Jesus Christ. He's disclosing himself and so with those thousands, He says, oh, and for the sake of the back, a brother asked, why does it say thousand in there? Why did all those interpretations say thousand and not thousands? And I believe that's why. John Piper, in an introduction to Hebrew, he mentions that, and several other theologians, even in seminary they say this. And I'm only guessing, because I've only audited a few seminary courses, is that in the language courses, they say, that's what you should do. Apply yourself to the study of the original languages. That's for the pastors, the preachers, the teachers, okay? I'm not saying that you have to. Will you be blessed if you do? Yes. But if you, you know, don't have the time, you're working and so forth. But if we're given over, like myself, unto the study of the Word and prayers for God's people, I'm under obligation to tell you what God says for us as a congregation. What direction are we going? you know, from our Baptist history. We're congregational in polity, so we're going in the direction. I can preach a bunch of words or teach a bunch of words and string them together for a message, but what's important for me as a pastor and as a member of the congregation is where are we going? And Lord, what do we see in it? And that's the reason why I think, that's my personal opinion. I might be wrong. about that because there's no commentary that he, since they don't bring it up as an interpretation, there's no commentary that mentions even that it's plural. And Greek isn't my strong language. It's still Greek to me. And I don't mean to say that as a joke. I've been studying it for 30 years and I just, for some reason it doesn't click in my head. But Hebrew is real easy I guess because I'm a right to left kind of guy. And so, in fact, I even look at the New Testament kind of as a Hebrew, from right to left. Anyway, but I was getting on all other religions. I guess I got onto a rabbit trail on that. They justify themselves, Roman Catholic Church, because they have a mass. The mass is all about, it is all about crucifying Christ again. by His mystical prayer with that wafer and with that cup, they believe it actually turns into the blood and the body of Christ and they're crucifying Him anew. Why? Because they don't believe that when Jesus said it is finished on the cross, it is finished. That your debts are paid when once you believe in Him and His work, biblical Christianity is the only religion. Paganism. You have to bring sacrifice after sacrifice. All of these things are what you do in order to earn your spot in heaven. Christianity is, Biblical Christianity is only by the work of God that we believe in. We believe the work of God. Now believing that God has regenerated us, made us new, we respond with works. 1 John 4, 19, we love him because he first loved us. And that's the keystone, the imputed righteousness, what Christ has done. And our response in love to Jesus is the hallmark of true biblical Christianity. It makes it unique and different from every other religion in the world. Then it becomes, once we believe pure religion and undefiled before God, and the father in James chapter one verse 27. Our response to that is now we love. And why is it a work? Because the word that's used here for love is agape. And you know that we can't, we went through that in Hebrews chapter 13, defining the difference between agape love and filial love. The best that we can accomplish when Jesus, when God said in John 3, 16, for God so loved the world, He used the word agape, for He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. Then Jesus says in John 13, verses 35 and 36, He says, a new commandment I give you, that you love one another, and here's the Here's the condemning portion of this verse, that you love one another as I have loved you. And even though it was before he went to the cross, he knew he was going to the cross since the beginning of his ministry. In fact, probably even before the beginning of his ministry, but now coming in power. John chapter two, he says, destroy this temple and in three days I shall raise it up knowing that he's going to the cross. And so he says at the end, before he goes to the cross, love that you should love one another, in verse 35, as I have loved you. And he uses agape in verses 35 and 36 four times. By this, all men shall know that you love, agape, one another. By this, all men will know that you are my disciples, that you have loved one for another. And he uses agape again. And we know that, as I mentioned last time, in the Gospel of John, in chapter 21, where Peter says, do you love me? Or Jesus says, do you love me? He uses agape, do you agape me? Lord, I'm fond of you. Because he denied him three times. He knows that that's as far as he can go. Feed my lambs, feed my little children. Do you love me? Do you agape me, Peter? Lord, you know I'm fond of you. Okay, tend my sheep. Guide those that are, guide those that, he says, I'm fond of you. Guide those who are mature in the faith. Tend my sheep. And he says, Peter, are you fond of me? Lord, you know all things. He was grieved because you asked him a third time, do you love him? But he says, are you fond of me? Use philio, that Greek word. Lord, you know that I'm fond of you. You know, I denied you three times. What am I going to say, that I love you with a sacrificial, I couldn't even, with a sacrificial love, I couldn't even stand before the little girl that was warming her hands by the fire saying, you're a Galilean. Your voice gives you away. He says, feed my sheep. Not just guide my mature ones, but also feed them. Because Jesus will work with that. And the biggest reason for that is called imputed righteousness. That Christ's righteousness was perfect and it's applied to our account. And the reason why love becomes a work now for us, does it mean that we don't love Jesus? Did it mean that Peter didn't love Jesus? No, it means that now that we do, we have to fight the influence of the world every moment of every day. We have to fight the rising up of our flesh, the corruption that still remains in our flesh. Because our flesh, not the stuff that's falling apart and not the stuff that's making my voice weak. I'm talking about the That thing which is called, in the Greek, sarxis, it's that thing that causes us to be worldly. The proof that we are descendants of Adam that still remains. That stuff rises up in us because the flesh is not of the Father, as 1 John 2, verse 16 tells us. It's the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. That's not the love of the Father. That's the flesh that we have to fight. We fight against the world and its influences, we fight against the flesh, because it rises up, it hates God, it hates the grace, it hates the gospel of Jesus Christ, hates Christ. Because Christ, looking at Christ, is what's going to keep us responding in love. We can't respond in love. So very readily. So that's the purpose of the Holy Spirit. Looking at Christ helps us to understand what He has done for us, how magnificent it is. But love is a trait and an attribute. And ours, as we know in 1 John 4, 8, because God is love, but ours is a response to God's love. and we must work against spiritual forces that oppose God's love. That's why we put on spiritual armor in Ephesians 6, to put on the strength of the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of his might. That's why we recognize the weapons of our warfare in 2 Corinthians 10 in verses 3 through 6. The weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, are not carnal, but they're spiritual to the pulling down of strongholds. Taking, as the King James Version says, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Which I think is actually a better translation because verse 6 says, that way we can obey. Because the English Standard Version says, take every thought captive to obey Christ. Well, that's actually in verse 6. the obedience there. And so love becomes a work because it's a struggle. But who wouldn't want to struggle with that? Every married couple who is married in Christ, if you have two believers, you know how that is a blessed work. Why would you want to hurt the one you love? As opposed to that song from the 40s, you know, you always hurt the ones you love. The ones you shouldn't hurt at all. But that's, it goes against the world, it goes against the flesh, and Satan's emissaries hate the gospel. They want their captain to win, and their captain thinks he's going to win. He opposes Christ. He thinks that he, he wants to go to heaven too, just like you. But he wants to go there as king. Our king is going to take us there. So that's love, it's agape. Let's see, what do we got here again? So, I know your works, your love and faith. Now, he's talking to believers. Faith would come before love, certainly, because we have to see Jesus Christ and we must be saved, right? So the faith that it's talking about, which is the same word that's used before and after. Pistis is the Greek word for it. But since he's writing to the church, he's writing to believers, right? Even though that they have done things wrong in Thyatira with this Jezebelian doctrine that's going on that's causing them to do all kinds of jiggery-pokery. This faith, which is a belief, it's a moral conviction. And the faith is mentioned in this particular place because we must continue to grow in grace and be strengthened in our faith. It's not just, oh, I believe, been there, done that, now let's go live like the world, you know, since I've been saved. Too many times out on the mission field, we've seen that. You know, I have told you time and again about, you know, My first two weeks in Scammon Bay, 15 years, 18 years ago, 2005. Oh yeah, I'm a Christian. Why are you a Christian? Well, I said that prayer at Bible camp when I was nine years old. How old are you now? 60? Never seen you in church? When was the last time you were in church? When I said that prayer in Bible camp when I was nine years old. You don't have a love for Christ's bride. It just opposes. They didn't have true faith to begin with. They had a faith in the prayer and not in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. We've seen that time and again, haven't we? People, you know, and even modern evangelism has come to that point where if somebody There's somebody who was on his deathbed, this is when I was in King Cove, when we were in King Cove. And somebody was on their deathbed and so they said, here, they recited the four scriptures from the Romans wrote while they're holding this person's hand and said, just squeeze my hand if you believe. We've reduced the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and the precious blood he's shed, the wrath that he had suffered. and the death that he had died to a simple hand squeeze. All right, and then popishly declare, oh, you're saved. Now they might have been, but the method, and the reason why is not because they heard the four scriptures of the Romans wrote and they squeezed somebody else's hand that was reciting it to them. God saved them in spite of that. That's how wretched we are. This is why, you know, Jesus is writing to these seven churches because they probably had methods that far exceeded that in laziness, et cetera. So we already have faith, but this faith continues to grow. And this is why I've spent seven years here, but spent 25 years, and by God's grace, calling me as a pastor. But for 30 years, I have been preaching. Even as a street preacher, we gotta see Christ. Because the more that we see Christ and the more that we know Christ, the more that we'll know of Christ, the more that we will love Christ. I love my wife more today after 34 years of marriage than I did when I first met her. I know more about her. Which in the world that should be totally opposite. The more I should know about her because she's a sinner, I should hate her guts. Worse, or actually better than that, she should hate my guts. Because man, the Lord saved me 40 years ago just this last June 3rd. And I am despicable. That's why, and I see, the more I see of Christ, the more I love the Christ who has saved me because there's nothing in me that's redeemable, even today. I'm pathetic. Am I better than I was when I was godless? Certainly, but the more illumination I see, the more wretched I become, and that's the irony of the miracle of salvation. He loves me with an everlasting love. He can't take his eyes off of me like we saw last week. The flame of fire, he looks and penetrates down to the marrow of our bones. As we saw in Hebrews 4 verses 11 through 13. He's the word of God, but the look that he gives us isn't superficial. He looks right down to the very marrow of our bones. He's the discerner of the thoughts and intents of our heart. The word is certainly, but that's still. it still has to penetrate the ugliness that's you and me. But Jesus himself, he sees us, knows us better than we know us, and still loves us with an everlasting love of Jeremiah 33, 30 or 33, 30, somewhere in there in Jeremiah that speaks, because he loves you with the Father's love. And the Father loves you because he sees Christ in all that you are. That's a wonderful miracle. Where's the next word? Faith and, oh, and service. Now the word service here, or it says work, or it says D, what does it say in the King James Version? It's in here somewhere. Oh, it's on the thing here. It says, I see your works, your charity, service, faith, and thy patience, and thy patience. Oh, I missed that. I skipped over, oh, it's service. I skipped, oh, and patient endurance. That's a good translation, patient endurance there. And it says thy patience. It just says thy patience, but it says patient endurance. It's an enduring, it says service before patient endurance in the English Standard Version. In the, Greek service actually comes before that, but in the King James Version they have them switched around for some reason. I don't know. But from the original Greek it makes more sense because the service is next, and it's where we get our word deacon from. The root word is diakonis. It uses diakonin because it's plural. But that's where we get our word deacon from, this service, which means ministry, service, deaconship. It's the ministry that we serve in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. But it's not limited to that in that it's just for the deacons. Oh, well, there's the deacons. It's not for me. No, it's for everyone because everyone serves in Christ's church in that way. It's that ministry. This has been perverted over the last 2,000 years in that they started doing these like personality tests in order to figure out your spiritual gifts so that you could place yourself into the church of Jesus Christ. I was talking with my, Rachel isn't here because she's sick today, but a couple, actually when she was first saved, when the Lord saved her two years ago and she was, her first time that she was up here in Alaska and we sat down and talked about it because you really wanted to figure out now that the Lord has saved me. I've heard all that stuff. She felt like, you know, the Apostle Paul, as he reads the scriptures, he knows the scriptures, he studied at the feet of Gamaliel. And now as the Lord appears to him, and then he receives salvation when Ananias comes in and the scales fall from his eyes. Now he's saved. And now everything from the scriptures is made alive. Everything that he studied was, it was not for nothing. He, it ministered to him now. He could see Christ everywhere from the Old Testament, because that's what they had. That's all they had. They didn't have the New Testament in Acts chapter nine when Paul was saved. That would, in fact, the very first letter of the New Testament, probably by James, wouldn't come until about Acts chapter 12. But Rachel was like that. She just, well, where's my place in Christ? I said, it's in him. So we read Ephesians 1, in him, in Christ, in Christ, of Christ, by Christ. There it is. But what am I supposed to do? Just be in Christ. He'll let you know as it goes, as time goes. Because we want to be so busy about ministering in Christ's body or something when you're truly saved and your life is gripped by his grace. But notice how far down it is on the list. It's after these other things. Now certainly there's a cyclical thing going on there just as in 2 Peter chapter 1, you know, you add to your faith virtue and unto virtue knowledge and so forth. It builds. But then it kind of comes back. It's cyclical. It does a cycle so that you continue to grow. But likewise is this ministry. He knows their ministry, that they serve the Lord Jesus Christ. Those that aren't following after the false doctrines, right? He knows that. And that even their patient endurance, they're in a place that's not a very good place. Asia Minor, which is today Turkey, and as I mentioned to you that the, I can't remember what the, what was the name of the place in Turkey? Akhisar, A-K-H-I-S-A-R, Akhisar in Turkey, the ancient city of Thyatira is within that actual city in Turkey today. And so today it's even worse with the, you know, the large population of Islam that's in Turkey. But they do have a Christian presence in Akasar, which is modern day Thyatira. And even some of the ancient ruins of the first century are still there within the city. There's like a section of ancient Thyatira there. But they have this service and they endure patiently because they're under great persecution. Apparently, besides this false doctrine that we see, the doctrine of Jezebel, who calls herself a prophet with her teaching to seduce the Lord Jesus' servants, that's in chapter 20. They've endured patiently with the kind of persecution that they've been receiving. Some of the commentaries will talk about how that Zeus and Apollos were very key in the worship of the many gods that were in Thyatira. Remember, the Christians in the first century were considered atheists. That was the condemnation by the Roman Empire and the Greek-speaking civilized world. You know why, right? Because the Romans and the Greeks They worship many gods. And the Christians are saying there's one God. And that by grace are we saved through that one God who sent in three persons. We serve one God. And they just thought that that's, the pagans said that's blasphemy. You can't serve one God. He's not even among the many gods that we worship. So they were considered atheists. Because we got a God for everything. is what the pagans were saying. And so they were suffering that kind of persecution there in all of these churches in Asia Minor. So they suffered it with great patience, but the word that's used here, this patient endurance, is one that we've encountered earlier. We encountered this in Pergamum, was hupomone. The Greek root word is hupomone, which means to, It's not just patience and an allowance, but it's a cheerful one, knowing that whatever is happening to me is not eternal. Actually, it is eternal in the sense that whatever is happening to me that I endure, it's going to bring glory to God the Father and it's going to exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's why we can cheerfully endure in this. And then finally it says, I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance and that your latter works exceed the first. This gives us an indication that the work that has been going on and the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ as head of his church ministering to the body, as the bridegroom ministering and cleansing his beloved bride, it's been going on for some time. And so of those that were coming along in this way with with the truth that their behavior was such that it ministered also unto a display to others of Christ's love, which in turn also in their exceeding love was ministering an abundance of what they believe, their faith, that also was given over in a display of that faith to minister unto one another in the body because they do love the brethren. By this all men will know that you're my disciples. They have love one another. Love for one another. And then patiently enduring, easily. Because we're not in this by ourselves. We're in this together. And as I'm ministering, as you're ministering, as we're ministering together, we endure patiently and not by ourselves. We endure cheerfully that we might suffer for Christ's sake. Because every suffering is a grace of God that allows us to get a glimpse of what Jesus went through. We'll never get a full picture of what he suffered as a righteous man in a sinful world. and then going to the cross and suffering God's wrath. But when we get a picture of that suffering and we, as Paul says in Philippians 3, he says the fellowship of his sufferings and we commune with Christ because the Holy Spirit allows us to participate in suffering on this planet that'll never come close to what Christ has done. But by that tiny glimpse, We get to know the heart of Christ a bit more. We get to see the face of Christ a bit more. We get to enjoy the depth of heaven and the breadth of heaven and the height of heaven a bit more through what we suffer here on this planet. And doing so for Christ's sake, it gives us, we draw nearer to Christ and obviously we'll love Christ more. patiently enduring. And so those works exceeded. They were abundant and there was a period of time. And we'll see that again in the succeeding verses that he gave her a space. This Jezebel who is a prophetess, he gave her a space to repent and she did not. He endured patiently. for her to repent, bringing message after message from the angel of the Church of Thyatira, or in other words, the pastor of the Church of Thyatira, the messengers, the teachers that were teaching, and gave her a space to repent. So this has been going on a while. The longsuffering of Christ, the longsuffering of God. We remember that longsuffering, He allows for a long time, but He's not eternal suffering. There's going to be an end. There's a judgment. And so, because that's what your latter works is. It says in Greek, it says, te erga sou, te esketa, your latter works, or better than your first, which is Prata, which comes for protos or proton, which means first. First, proton, eschaton, last. But he says that your works, that your works, ta erga su, that's your works, ta eschaton. And that's where, you know, the last works, the latter works, that's where we get our word, that's where we get our word eschatology from, the study of last things. Brother Mike. Are they being commended for their endurance? Actually what they're commended for is all of it. Their latter works is the total, what he's saying, the erga. I know your works. These are your works. Your love, your faith, your service, your ministry, your patient endurance, and so forth. And now they're even overly abundant. Those works in total are greatly abundant, and I know them. He's intimately aware of them. He rejoices, even though it doesn't say he rejoices in them, I'm sure that he does, Brother Mike. Not yet. For the sake of those in the back, Brother Mike is asking, he was asking about the works at first, but are these the works that are going on? And is the doctrine of Jezebel, which I'll read verse 20, but I have this against you that you tolerate that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. Do those doctrines oppose those things? They could, but we can't imply that just by what is written. Verse 21 says, I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Verse 22, Behold, I will throw her into a sick bed. This is the repercussions of that. And those who commit adultery with her, I will throw into great tribulation unless they repent of her works. And verse 23, And I will strike her children dead, and all the children will know that I am he who searches the mind and heart. And I will give you to, I will give to each of you according to your works. And before we get into that, because all of that will be taken as a lump when we come back to look at it next week, but I will say this. With so much commendable in what they have, yet their sin is very great. Though they're patiently enduring, they're not going after. And that's going to take some time to build on because we have to go back to Pergamum again. Whereas we mentioned the things that they are, the things that are the repercussion of what Pergamum did. Jesus said that, you know, you need to take care of it. If not, I'm coming to take care of it. Here, he doesn't even say, you need to take care of this. This is what's happening and I'm gonna do it. Because he gave her space to repent and they weren't, she wasn't repenting of what it looks like. And we'll have to dig into those verses to see what it looks like. I don't have enough time to go into it now, but we will next week. We'll have time to uncover it. Because as your notes say in verses 20 and 21, Jesus rebukes the church for permitting Jezebelian teaching to seduce believers into gross sin. which had been going on for a long time because the Lord Jesus had given the leaders of the sect ample time to reflect and repent. And so, despite all that was commendable in them, they had a great sin going on. And in Pergamum, if you recall, that though they had the doctrine of Balaam and the doctrine of the the teaching or the doctrine of the Nicolaitans in verses 14 and 15. In verse 16 he says, Therefore repent, if not I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. And this is what made, as we looked at the hidden manna and the white stone with the name on it, why that being a reward would help them to be able to call out and discern what is the right doctrine and what is the wrong doctrine. Because Jesus will give them hidden manna. What is needed? If I don't see it right away, see what's going on there. See there's already false doctrine going on in Pergamum. But I will give you hidden manna. Not only just your daily supply, but He will give it. It's not actually that you're searching for it. And the context is, is that there's already false doctrine. The hidden manna isn't going to create more false doctrine. If Jesus gives it, it can't. But it will attack the false doctrine. But if we're not taking on our responsibility, responding in love to what God has for us, he's gonna take care of it. And thankfully, we don't know how the history did play out. We do know that Pergamum still exists today in Bergama. is in Turkey. It's still there. There is a presence of Christianity there. Not very powerful, not very strong. They probably resemble more like the Church of Philadelphia now. Very weak but very evangelistic. There's a lot of orthodoxy there. Greek and Russian and Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholicism. There's a lot of orthodoxy there in Bergama. Likewise in Thyatira, in Akisar. There is a Christian presence there. It's very small as far as biblical grace, free grace, and God's work in Christ alone, by faith alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, for God's glory alone, according to scripture alone. It's a small presence there, but it's still there. And so we'll dig into it a little bit more. We'll look into who Jezebel was from, we'll see that from, that stretches from 1 Kings 18 to about 1, 2 Kings 9, I think, 6 or 9, I think. Her name is mentioned all the way to 2 Kings 9, if I recall correctly. Let's see, what else do we have here? So that, I think that applies. But one of the things that you can keep in mind as far as for study ahead for next week, when you look up, if you're looking up, say, 1 Kings 18 and seeing Jezebel up until 2 Kings 9, she was not a prophetess. So something else is going on here that will clue us into what's happening. Jezebel is used as a form, as a reference, but it's not Jezebel herself. Because this Jezebel is a prophetess. But Jezebel's name, since she was the wife of Ahab, is pretty well synonymous with someone who's wicked. Someone who's pretty evil. Why would somebody today want to name their child, their female child Jezebel? It's not common in America. We have enough Christian roots in America to where most, I don't think that that's a common name for the last 250 years in American history, just because of what Jezebel represents in the Bible. It's odd because down South they want to be so biblical. We saw a, there's a city, I think it's in Alabama, Sardis. Jesus says no good thing about one of the churches and one of them is Sardis. He doesn't have anything to commend them by. Why would you want to name the city Sardis? It's strange. Anyway, or even Ephesus. I think there is an Ephesus in Mississippi. There is Corinth in Mississippi, but why would you want to name it Ephesus? Ephesus is, even though it's the first church, they abandoned their first love. And this is something, okay, for homework, I got four minutes. Oh, any other questions, any questions or comments? Kind of like for homework, if you want to look this up, see the four churches and notice somewhat of a progression, especially in the ones that have something terrible going on. And Philadelphia are the two churches Jesus doesn't say anything bad about. He doesn't bring up any graces covering them. Smyrna is the church that is persecuted unto death. And Philadelphia is the weak church, but it has an open door. And even the name of the church, Philo Adolphos, brotherly love. So love covering a multitude of sins. But Ephesus in abandoning their first love, Pergamum in allowing, tolerating certain false doctrines, and then Thyatira just being given over, not just allowing, but given over that it's even sweeping some that have made confessions of faith into that, not just false doctrine, but the immorality. that freely flows from it. See the progression there. Check that out as part of your homework. So any questions or comments? All right, let's close it in prayer. Our most blessed and gracious God and Father, thank you. I personally thank you today for being able to give me a voice by the end of the message, and I think that it's warming up for being able to preach this morning, but speak to us about these churches, Lord, and minister unto our hearts, and let us examine ourselves personally that we may see how it might apply, how these things apply to us. May we attach ourselves to the truth of your love and give us the strength to be able to fight against the world and the flesh, spiritually speaking, so that your love will abound and that we may love you and respond in love with these wonderful works. We love you and thank you in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen.